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From its origins as a band formed after a chance meeting at a music shop to a pop-rock group that now headlines sold-out shows, Issac Slade talks about five songs that demonstrate The Fray’s musical journey:

‘How to Save a Life’

Released Aug. 28, 2004, the song received a bump in notice and popularity when it was used during a key scene in the ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” and also for HBO’s “Summer Image” television campaign. It’s from the 2005 album “How to Save a Life.”

“It has a really, really stripped-down piano, drum, vocal, guitar thing that I like to think tapped into a sentiment that so many of us have felt so many times over the years — watching somebody go through something and having no clue what to say or how to help or how to fix it, or even if fixing it is the point. It’s a story song. It’s got a cool melody and a really catchy piano part, but at the end of the day it’s like a steady hand on the shoulder thing.”

‘Over My Head (Cable Car)’

Released Oct. 7, 2005, the song became the fifth most-downloaded single of 2006. The track was also from “How to Save a Life.”

“There’s an energy and kind of freight-train momentum moving to ‘Over My Head’ that we tapped into early on. It was probably the 10th song we wrote. We were going for sort of a Sundance Film Festival complex plot — the characters, the tension and the development — from the first note to the last. We wanted to capture this kind of restlessness of youth and the risk of really loving and losing. I feel like we captured it with a big up energy that you can kind of tap along to in the car.”

‘You Found Me’

The song stemmed from crises among friends and family that prompted Slade to confront the age-old question of why bad things happen to good people. Released Nov. 21, 2008, the song debuted at No. 28 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and peaked at No. 7. It’s from the 2009 self-titled album “The Fray.”

“There’s a lot of gravity to the storyline and the lyric.”

‘The Wind’

Written by Joseph King and Isaac Slade, the song was never released as a single. It is on “Scars & Stories,” the band’s third studio album, which was released on Feb. 7, 2012.

“We bought a bunch of old keyboards and stuff and we were kind of making this progression from that first and second record of real organic stuff, going into a more electronic, experimental world.”

‘Hold My Hand’

The song is the opening track on the band’s fourth studio album, “Helios,” which dropped this year on Feb. 25.

“It kind of captures the ethos and the moment the best. … It’s got this marriage of instruments that plug in and instruments that do not, and still has this generational conundrum, generational tension — I guess between me and my father and my son and my ancestors.”